Tag Archives: k morris poet

Mannequin

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As a mannequin in a shop window, at which people stare,
She stands in the glare
Of the bedroom light.
Once, such things did excite.
Now all is null
Or on occasions, he
Takes a dull,
Almost professional interest in yet another she.

Gazing at the girl, in her birthday suit
He thinks on the route
Cause of his obsession with mannequins.
Loneliness or sins?
Where begins
A man’s cursed traverse
Of the path to the ever lasting bonfire
Where desire
Ends in mechanical sport
With a mannequin bought
Out of boredom.
He knows there is no true joy in hoardom
For him or her.
Still, in despair
He takes a half-hearted pleasure there.

Feather

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Shall we speak as though we will go on forever?
I saw a feather
Borne on a summer’s breeze.
It did please
Me
To see
So carefree
A thing
Dance on the balmy air.

The breeze became a gale,
Then came the hail.
The feather
Was by the tempest tossed,
And forever
Lost
In that passing storm.

Night Duty

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The click clack of stilettos.
Girls from ghettos
Feet are lost
In carpets they could never afford,
While a discreet board
Shows the cost
Of most things.

The lift bell pings.
What goes up must go down.
The receptionist, eyes lost in her book
Gives a slight frown.
Why bother to look?
For of course
A nod is as good as a wink
To a blind horse.

A Man Can Not Always Be Serious

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I was recently reminded of Sleary’s words, to Mr Gradgrind, in “Hard Times”:
“People mutht be amuthed. They can’t be alwayth a learning, nor yet they can’t
be alwayth a working, they an’t made for it”.
It happened in this manner. I fell into conversation with an acquaintance in the pub, who mentioned that a friend had said words to the following effect:
“Poetry should be serious. Proper poetry isn’t humorous”.
I am the first one to defend serious poetry. The expression of heartfelt melancholy as in Keats “Ode to a Nightingale”, or Dowson’s “They are not long the weeping and the laughter”, engenders in me a profound sense of connection with the poet, long since deceased. I feel as they felt or as close to it as it is humanly possible to feel. Serious art (whether poetry or otherwise) has the power to shake us out of our complacency, make the strong man weep or simply cause the reader to reflect deeply on existence and her place in it.
Humorous verse does, in contrast cause us to laugh outloud, as in Lewis Carroll’s wonderful Jabberwocky, or Edward Lear’s “The Owl and the Pussy-cat”, To possess the power to make others laugh uproariously is a real talent and those who have the capacity to do so should not be dismissed merely owing to the fact that their work is not “serious”. To misquote Sleary:
“A man can not always be serious”!
Perhaps it is attitudes such as that expressed by my acquaintence’s friend (that poetry must be serious), which help to explain (at least partially) why so many people maintain they “don’t like poetry”.